you’re young. too young to know anything, but at the same time you’re young enough to follow your own rules of life. you cry whenever you get a scrape or bruise, but the idea of adventure is enough to keep you going.

it’s three years into your life when you distinctly remember demanding your grandmother pour you a cup of soda. you’re three and your grandmother spoils you too much to realize three year olds should not be drinking soda. your mom comes home from her classes to find you passed out on the dinner table, a knocked over cup of coke and an apologetic grandmother enough context for her to put together the pieces.

she doesn’t complain. you’re knocked out cold.

you never talked a lot. your own mother doesn’t remember your first word. you didn’t question many things. you were silent as you boarded the airplane, your mother holding you tight as she gave the tall man standing next to her a thin smile.

it doesn’t take a lot for you to realize you aren’t home anymore. at least, not the place you call home. your mother coos into your ear the words “this is our new home,” and you try and process the thought.

you have questions - a lot of them, really - but you keep quiet again. hope for the best. you go to sleep underneath unfamiliar blankets and despite the warmth they provide, everything seems a little colder.

you wonder a lot. you wonder about your family. your mother whispers to you a bedtime story and your mind drifts elsewhere. you wake up to an unfamiliar ceiling and you wonder to yourself how long it’ll take. until it all feels like home. until your mother’s promise of a better life will come to light. you don’t like to wonder, but you still do. even if it keeps you up at night.

-

you meet a girl. she looks your age and you’re both staring at each other blankly as your mothers exchange conversation in a language you vaguely understand. the other girl gives you a smile and for some reason you smile back.

she approached you one day at preschool. you were playing in the sandbox when you saw her figure move closer to you and you instinctively move to the side to allow her room. you get confused when she turns to you. your eyebrows crease because you were sure this girl was going to play with the sand dinosaur, but it appears your were wrong.

the girl’s name is jiwoo, you know that. her last name you don’t quite catch, but you figure you’ll save that conversation for another time.

“do you want to be my best friend?”

your eyes light up and you immediately tackle her in a hug because yes you’d love to be her best friend.

“my name is jiwoo.”

“my name is jungeun.”

you’re ecstatic. you have every right to be. from there on, you never leave each others side. it’s bliss.

you say you love jiwoo within the first week of knowing her and she bluntly replies with “i love you more,”

you take offense because no, there’s no way she loves you as much as you love her.

“i love you more-r.”

“i love you morerer!”

“i love you times one million!”

“i love you times infinity!”

jiwoo giggles because she won and all you can do is tackle her in a hug and cry because you hate losing, but at least you love jiwoo. for a while that’s all that matters.

she’s all that matters.

you find out that the cut off date for grades is the one thing that keeps you from being with jiwoo all the time. you hate life for a second while you sob into your mothers nape, wailing at the very idea of not having jiwoo by your side, even if it be for one second. your mother phones jiwoo’s mother and it turns out jiwoo’s taking it just as bad.

they quickly arrange a sleepover.

you sleep in the same bed that night and you hold each other really tight. maybe then you’ll imprint part of yourself onto each other. that hope is what keeps you from staying back a grade. you have her right now so you’re fine.

you’re fine as long as you have her.

-

you’re in fourth grade when you realize you aren’t jiwoo’s only friend. it takes you a little to process that jiwoo is lovable and it’s no wonder that other people would like her as much as you do. (you won’t say that other people love jiwoo as much as you do because no one really does apart from jiwoo’s parents.)

you meet jiwoo’s new friends at her birthday party. they don’t seem too bad. in fact, they’re pretty funny. the girl named jinsol takes a liking to you and you spend time hurling chunks of grass at each other and making potty jokes. you’re just happy that they make jiwoo smile.

it’s when jiwoo gives you a small smile before blowing out her candles that you wonder what she wished for.

it’s in sixth grade when you realize that jiwoo is pretty cute. of course you knew that jiwoo was cute, you complimented her on that just about every time you saw jiwoo. however, there’s something else that sparks whenever you see jiwoo in her most natural state; wide smiles and crescent eyes that sparkled no matter the circumstances.

you’re not sure what’s so different about her since she looks like the same old jiwoo you grew up with, but you’re sure that there’s something that must have changed about jiwoo. you’ll have to ask her later. for now, all you want to do is wrap her up in a warm bear hug; so you do.

“gotcha!”

jiwoo lets out a hearty laugh, the one that she does every time you hug her from behind. this time, you feel a small flutter in your stomach from… well you don’t know what. jiwoo turns around and returns the hug, enveloping you with her arms, burying her head into the nape of your neck. your cheeks burn at this and you make a mental note to tell your mom you’re feeling sickly.

you start to think she’s beautiful in your sophmore year together. you’re discreetly holding hands with her under the table and when you watch her side profile break out into a huge smile from a joke your friend jinsol made. that’s when your eyes widen and you feel a heat rising up to your cheeks. you take note of the image in front of you and you start holding her hand just a little tighter - an action that’s immediately reciprocated.

you take solace in her touch and continue to laugh along with everyone else. at one point you stop focusing on the stupid jokes that yerim and jinsol are making and return your attention to jiwoo. your heart’s beating a little faster.

the realization of everything begins to dawn on you and you can only continue holding her hand. because you would dread to do anything else but that. so you sit and laugh and pretend you didn’t just figure out you were in love with your childhood friend. for a moment it works.

then jiwoo lets out a laugh that dripped of honey and you know you have it bad.

-

it’s your senior year. your sat on your bed, admiring how the ambient gleam of light from the moon outside seeped into your room from your window. you’re about to close your eyes when you see a figure pop up from the side of the window.

chuckling, you get up and pop open the window for jiwoo, who climbs in with a tortured expression. immediately, you know what’s wrong. you wrap her in your arms and you stand there for a bit, jiwoo sobbing silently against your chest as the breeze from outside cools the warmth between you two.

“her again?” you let out quietly, running your hand through her hair. you take note of the new maroon colored strands slipping between your fingers and you note that it looks good on her. you’ll have to tell her later.

“yeah,” jiwoo lets out a choked sob, and you can only tighten your grip around her waist, pulling her impossibly closer.

“you know she’s just using you, wooming…” you pull away from jiwoo, staring at her glazed over eyes. you admire how pretty they look in the dim moonlight and pull her back into you, her body flushed against yours. “i hate seeing you cry… you know that?”

jiwoo nods into your chest.

“what happened?”

“she ditched me at jinsol’s party to make out with some chinese model that came to the party…” jiwoo sniffled, and your heart strained at the usually bubbly voice taking on such a heartbroken tone.

“so you came here?” you’re planting a kiss onto the top of jiwoo’s head and she stops shaking in your arms.

“so i did.” jiwoo gives you a small smile.

“jiwoo-” you pull back, holding her by her shoulders. you bite the insides of your cheeks, hesitating as jiwoo calmed her breathing. there’s a lot you want to say. there’s a lot you want to confess. you want to hug jiwoo and whisper in her ear about the years you’ve yearned over her and just how much she means to you. you want to confess the love that you have for her and the things you’ve done for her to make her happy because even if she wasn’t yours, she was happy and that’s all you want for her.

but then another tear escapes jiwoo’s eye and you realize that those thoughts don’t matter right now.

“stay the night, jiwoo” you give jiwoo a smile as you bring your thumb up to her cheek and wipe away the tear that threatened to roll down her face. “we’ll go anywhere you want tomorrow, i just want you to be happy.”

“we have school tomorrow-”

“then we’ll skip.” you pull jiwoo towards you again. “we’ll skip and we’ll do all the stupidly fun things you want to do and i won’t protest a single thing we do because i love you and i want you to have the best day ever. i would skip class for you any day of the week. you’re important to me, jiwoo. please remember that.”

you can feel jiwoo smile against your chest.

“i love you, jungeun.”

“i love you too, jiwoo,” you pause “more than you could ever know.”

-

you’re four and just about as friendly and welcoming as a shiba inu that’s in for more than it can handle. your parents have always warned you about talking to strangers, but you wonder what’s so different about the girl in front of you, shyly poking her head out from behind her mom. there’s a lock of hair in front of her eyes, but you can tell she’s nervous.

you don’t really want to interrupt your mom’s conversation with the other girl’s mom, so instead you shoot her a grin.

and wide eyes stare for a moment before smiling right back at you.

it’s in preschool, when you’re babbling with other kids around the building blocks that you spot a familiar face, playing with the sandbox in the room by herself. you do a double take between her and the other kids chatting idly, knocking down buildings and pretending to be airplanes. you’re not quite sure why no one would want to play with her, so you decide to be the one that does.

you move towards her, and she instinctively moves to the side, allowing you room to play in the sandbox instead of greeting you. you don’t know why at the time, but your heart aches at this.

so you gather your wits and ask her to be your best friend (a question you’ve only reserved for two other people: mr. cuddles, you’re favorite stuffed bear and sir wooming, the spider that resides in the far left corner of your bathroom ceiling) and when she tackles you in a hug, you realize how nice it feels in her arms and hug back, albeit just a little tighter.

you learn her name is jungeun on that day and you watched your mom smile faintly as you recite to her everything you learned about jungeun that day.

-

in third grade, you realize what jealousy is.

it’s at your birthday party, when you introduce jungeun to all the other great friends you’ve made at school. you notice her weariness about them, but smile warmly at how easily jinsol steps forward and makes her feel welcomed and loved.

you also notice the lack of attention jungeun pays towards you as she converses with jinsol almost the entire time. you feel a churning in your stomach that stops whenever she catches your gaze and waves.

you’re close to wishing for jungeun to look at you more than anyone else as you blow out the candles before you realize how jungeun must have felt when you showed to her the friends you had other than her. so you clear your mind of everything else and shoot jungeun a thin smile across the table before wishing for to be happy, even if she’s not by your side.

you start to understand you don’t really like boys in seventh grade. that jinwoo guy who took your first kiss was sweet, but it just didn’t feel all that right. you tell jungeun about your predicament and she seems uncharacteristically quiet at your rant, only fiddling with your fingers as you told her your sorrows. she looks up at you, eyes glazed over and you feel a rush of blood come to your cheeks.

“i think i feel the same way.” jungeun mumbles, averting her gaze.

you don’t do anything about the rising butterflies in your stomach at the statement and instead smile warmly at her.

“i’m happy i have you with me, jungie,”

there’s a faint upwards curl of jungeun’s lips. the one that she does every time she gets flustered. you find it cute.

“me too.”

in junior year, you meet a girl named sooyoung, who was a year your senior. immediately, you’re infatuated. soon, you find out those feelings were reciprocated. jungeun warns you about her, how she was a typical heartbreaker and would only end up hurting you. you were never really good at listening.

sooyoung takes your ity a week into your relationship, but as you watch her sleep that night, you can’t help but feel like this was wrong. her bed sheets were warm, but you couldn’t help but feel cold next to her.

you think about jungeun as you quietly observe the moon that sat outside of sooyoung’s window. there’s an owl in the tree and you smile. you know how much jungeun loves owls. you think about how she and jinsol came in one day with bleached hair and how hot jungeun looked with blonde hair. your face heats up and you sigh, turning to look at sooyoung to the right of you.

you’re not sure what you’re doing anymore. maybe one day you’ll admit it to yourself. about your feelings for jungeun and how you know. you know so much more about how she’s been feeling and it’s been eating you up for years now. you want to tell her, but you’ve dug yourself into a hole that you can’t come out of. you wish your ineptness hadn’t gotten you to where you are now.

your phone lights up and jungeun’s name flashes on the screen.

it’s a text from her, reciting all of the things that happened on jungeun’s date with the choir president, haseul, that night and your fingers tighten around the sheets beneath you.

you decide to turn off your phone for the night.

-

you’re in your senior year and it’s the day before your graduation. jungeun’s over at your house, passed out on your bed after a session of looking through old yearbooks. you laughed at the stupid expressions you both made in your coordinated fourth grade photos (jungeun making an ‘L’ with her fingers on her forehead and the year after you proudly made a ‘W’ after you beat jungeun in tic tac toe) and solemnly smiled and reminisced at the photos your mom brought in for you two to look at.

you’re next to jungeun, propped up on one arm, quietly combing your fingers through all of the tangles in her now fading blonde hair. you can see her roots at the top of her scalp and you poke at her hair part.

jungeun stirs at this and whacks at your hand, eliciting you to laugh at her.

she turns and you’ve already wrapped your hands around her waist, pulling her towards you.

“wooming…”

you blink. she hasn’t called you that in a few days. you hum into the top of her head as she tucks herself even further into the nape of your neck. “what’s up jungie?”

“i love you,” she starts, trailing off drowsily “and i can’t believe that i’ll be able to see you again.”

“you see me everyday,” you interject.

“shaddup. university’s been so hard without you… jinsol’s great, but i don’t have enough classes with her. why can’t you just move a grade up already?” jungeun whines into you. “i want to be like this forever. can we do that?”

“wouldn’t be the best decision career wise, so, no.” you chuckle and you hear jungeun let out a muffled laugh herself. “if we could do this all the time with no real world responsibilities, like, you know, going to the bathroom, then i would love to. let’s just… cherish this.”

“i do,” jungeun sits up “every second i’m with you, jiwoo. i cherish it.”

you flush and you can tell jungeun’s red in the face too, even under the dim illumination your wall lights are giving off. jungeun leans a little closer to you and you can smell the peach flavored lip balm she’s wearing.

“wooming i-” jungeun cups your cheek. you close your eyes instinctively, but you feel a shift in your comforter and you feel jungeun’s fingers slip away from your jawline. “i’m sorry,”

you bring jungeun into you and let her sob into your shoulder.

jungeun’s phone lights up on the bed. you stare at the missed call notifications from haseul and wonder who jungeun is really apologizing to.

-

“you don’t love me, do you?”

haseul’s words stab into you. this question, you knew, would come eventually. so here it is, a raging fire in front of you and you’ve only got a cup of water in your hand. you wonder what will come out of this.

“i’m sorry,” you bite the insides of your cheeks.

there’s a sigh of disapproval and you watch haseul’s hand curl the bottom of her shirt into a ball. “jungeun,” haseul’s eyebrows furrow “it’s a yes or no question. i’m not looking for an apology, no matter the answer. just… please.”

“no,”

haseul gives you a half-hearted smile.

“yeah, that’s what i thought.”

-

“jungeun, can i kiss you?”

your eyes shoot up from the textbook you’re studying to the girl across the room. you’re cheeks dust with a rosy color, but you can’t be sure if jiwoo’s joking or not. you can already feel the sweat accumulating on your back.

“w...what?” your voice croaks and jiwoo’s standing up from where she was sitting. “are you… are you being serious right now, wooming?”

“do you want me to be?”

your mind blanks. you blink and in the next instance jiwoo’s on all fours on your bed, crawling towards you. you’re not sure if you’re or scared out of your mind so you decide it’s a good equilibrium of both. before you know it, jiwoo’s hands and knees are on either side of you and you feel completely defenseless.

“wooming,” your face is burning. “you can’t be-”

“if i am?”

“jiwoo!” you place a hand on jiwoo’s chest, keeping her from advancing any further. “stop with the hypotheticals,” your voice starts wavering “you… why are you doing this? i’m sure you know by now, right? you can’t be that dumb and oblivious to not notice, jiwoo. i know you know. please, don’t… i’m so scared.”

jiwoo stops and you start releasing pressure against her chest. she stares at you and you stare back, as dumbstruck as a deer caught in headlights. you wonder what role you’re playing in that analogy.

“you’re right,” jiwoo blinks and you watch her eyes glaze over. “i do know and i’m sorry. i’m sorry i never told you what i knew and god i’m sorry you’ve been feeling this way for so long, even when i was with sooyoung and you were with haseul. i’m sorry i let your feelings fester and i’m sorry i never told you how i feel.”

you froze.

“how you feel…?”

jiwoo smiles, desperately trying to wipe the tears had started to roll down her cheeks. “i love you jungeun. in the same way you do me. i’ve loved you since we first met and i still do, albeit in a different light from before. i’m in love with the way you smile and the ways you laugh and how you react to the world around you, bad or good. i’m happiest in your arms and i can’t believe it took me so long to understand i was just pushing away feelings that i was so sure didn’t exist. jungeun, when sooyoung… when she took my ity, i knew i had made a mistake. i made the mistake you knew i would make with her and i didn’t want to admit to you that you were right.”

“and you have no idea how many times i thought about you and haseul and how much i envied her for being with the most beautiful girl in the world and being able to call you hers. it was painful, jungeun, so painful and i couldn’t help but hurt at the fact that you must have felt the same when i was with sooyoung. i knew and yet… i still… you had no idea, did you?”

“no, not… not in the slightest-” you manage out the words. “jiwoo, please don’t cry. i hate it-”

“when i cry.”

you manage a slight chuckle, nodding your head. “i really do, you know…”

“i know.”

“let’s start over, then.” you take jiwoo by her upper arms, your touch gentle.

“i love you jiwoo, and i couldn’t even begin to place a finger on when i started to feel the way i do now.” you’re biting your lip, wondering what to say next. “i’ve waited a while to say what i’m saying now and it… feels really good, actually. i love you. and i’ll love you for the next eternity and the one after that. and it sounds cheesy i know, but it’s true. i- god, am i shaking? i’m shaking. jiwoo you-”

jiwoo curls her finger in your shirt collar and pulls you towards her. “i love you too. can i kiss you now?”

“please.”

you kiss, and the years you spent pining felt worth it. every second spent with jiwoo was a second well spent. you knock teeth as jiwoo deepens the kiss and you laugh against jiwoo’s peach flavored lips. you kiss, and you feel at home again.

-

“you ever wonder what you’ll be doing after you graduate from uni?” jiwoo’s fingers slip in between your own and you smile at the contact. there’s a gentle breeze dancing around you and you watch the leaves fall around you in blurry streaks of red, yellow and orange.

“of course i do,” you tighten your grip around jiwoo’s fingers. “everyday, really.”

“would you wait for me?” jiwoo questions shyly. “after you graduate, i mean.”

“i’m sure you know the answer to that question, wooming.”

“i do.”